Monday, June 13, 2016
Monday
I'm going to guess that Antwan is 25. 5'10", thin, but I think he must have recently lost a lot of weight. The polyester Subaru branded polo he wore wasn't forgiving of the extra skin on his chest and waist. His hair and mustache were neatly trimmed, and his black framed glasses would have been perfectly professional had they not been paired with green khaki cargo shorts and sneakers. I first took him for one of the technicians working on our car. The shop manager introduced us. Ana and I were sitting on a bench outside the sales office, enjoying the morning sun. Antwan said hello to me, then leaning over in an awkward bow, took just the fingers of Ana's hand. "That's odd" I thought, and noticed the crude checkerboard tattoo on the inside of his wrist. He didn't leave with the manager. Instead he just stood there making small talk. Were we from Savannah? Did we like it?
I gathered this was our salesman. I'd asked Tyson, the shop manager, to appraise our 2003 Subaru outback. He told us it was going to cost $1,500 to fix the A/C. I wondered out loud if it wouldn't be better to just put that money down on something newer. That's when I asked for the trade-in value. Tyson said Antwan would take care of it.
But Antwan didn't want to talk to us about the trade-in value. The small talk continued.
"So, do you have any kids?"
"Yeah, our son Micah is three"
"What!?" Antwan stood up taller. He turned his back to us. "IN A WORLD....Where my son is older than your son...." He spun around, smiling.
We laughed weakly, trying to be good sports about whatever this was that was happening to us. We were prisoners now.
"So what kind of car are you looking for?"
"Oh...well, we're just trying to understand what the trade in value of our car would be. It would help us make a decision abou-"
"My manager, he owns this place, he owns this one and the Toyota dealer over there, and Kia down the street. He went over every aspect of your vehicle and he'll write up a detailed proposal but what I'm trying to understand is what kind of car you guys are interested in buying? Because it starts with the car. If you can tell me what you are looking to get, we can work it out."
"Well what are our options?" Ana said.
"If I'm being honest" I said, "I think we could swing a small car payment. But that's why it would help to know how mu-"
"IN A WORLD...Where options are our friends...lets go take a look at what we have on the lot"
# posted by joel @ 9:22 AM 
